WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – On September 20, 2001 Professor Jacqueline Lang Weaver, A.A. White Professor of Law from the University of Houston Law Center, will lead the 2^nd annual Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin lecture.  Professor Weaver’s lecture, The Federal Government as a Useful Enemy: Perspectives on the Bush Energy/Environment Agenda from the Texas Oil Fields, will take an in-depth look at the energy crisis and the governments’ newly formulated energy plan.  The lecture will be held at Pace Law School in White Plains, NY in the Tudor Room at 4:00p.m., with a reception immediately following.  

Professor Jacqueline Lang Weaver received a J.D. Degree from the University of Houston Law Center magna cum laude in 1975 and a B.A. degree in Economics magna cum laude from Harvard in 1968.  She served as a council member of the Oil, Gas and Mineral Law Section of the State Bar from 1988-1991.  From 1991-1992, she served as Executive Director of the Russian Petroleum Legislation Project at the University of Houston, which drafted model petroleum laws for the Russian Federation on licensing, conservation and environment, pipelines and taxation. 

Professor Weaver will discuss how President Bush, raised in the west Texas oil town of Midland, was quick to respond to the emerging energy crisis with an energy plan formulated by a task force headed by Vice President Cheney, another oil man with western roots.  The President’s new plan has been both touted and widely criticized as being an oilman's dream pushing fossil fuel production, dismissing conservation, and reducing environmental protection.   Professor Weaver will debate weather there is any truth to the reports that the plan is exactly what one would expect from a President who was a former oilman from the heart of West Texas.  She will also review the role of the federal government in Texas oil fields over the course of time-both on the production side and the environmental side.  The conflicting goals of increasing oil and gas production and protecting the environment in Texas, and more particularly, how has the federal government intervened in this resolution will be discussed as well. 

Founded in 1976, Pace Law School is located in White Plains, N.Y., 20 miles north of New York City. The School offers the J.D. program for full-time, and part-time day and evening students. Its post-graduate program includes the LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees in environmental Law and the LL.M. in Comparative Legal Studies. Pace has one of the nation's top-rated environmental law programs and its Clinical Education Program also is nationally ranked, offering clinics in domestic violence prosecution, securities arbitration.